Court: Trading papers not invasion of student privacy

'Trade and grade' OK, court saysExchanging papers is not an invasion of student privacy

PATTY REINERT, Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, February 20, 2002

WASHINGTON -- A unanimous Supreme Court Tuesday upheld the classroom practice of having students swap papers and correct each other's work, ruling that "trade and grade" policies do not violate the students' privacy rights.

The ruling reversed a lower court's decision that had forced schools in six states -- Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming -- to abandon the common practice of having students grade each other's homework or pop quizzes in class and then call out the results for the teacher to record in the gradebook.

The practice, which some teachers argue helps reinforce the lessons and gives students immediate feedback on their work, is widely used in schools around the country.

The Houston Independent School District, however, prohibits it. The district's policy says that "under no circumstances shall students grade test papers or record grades of other students."

At issue in Tuesday's case was whether the 1974 federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prohibits students from grading each other's routine daily work as a teacher reads the answers aloud.

The law was passed in an effort to protect the confidentiality of students' official educational transcripts and school disciplinary records, but it is unclear whether Congress intended for teachers to keep every piece of homework or classwork private.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a former law professor who wrote the court's opinion, said that was not the intent.

Correcting a classmate's test can be "as much a part of the assignment as taking the test itself" because it helps students review the material, Kennedy said.

Forcing teachers to grade every piece of work students turn in, he said, would make it difficult for teachers to give "immediate guidance" to students and to determine quickly whether students grasp the course work before moving forward.

And Kennedy said it would be impractical to expect teachers to keep private every single grade on daily work because they would have to make sure that no other students see "a happy face or a star or a comment" on their classmates' papers.

"We doubt Congress meant to intervene in this drastic fashion," Kennedy wrote for the court.

Kristja Falvo, an Oklahoma mother who sued the Owasso Independent School District, north of Tulsa, over the trade and grade policy in 1998, said she was "very sad" about the ruling.

Falvo took the case to court after her son, then 10, was ridiculed as a "dummy" by classmates when he was made to call out his 47 percent score on a pop quiz.

"Children cannot learn when they are embarrassed or humiliated or have low self-esteem," Falvo said Tuesday. "I'm just hoping that even though the school district won, they will realize this practice is not necessary, and it can be very harmful."

She said she is considering asking Congress to rewrite federal privacy law to ban the practice.

Jerry Richardson, a Tulsa lawyer who represented the school district, hailed the ruling as a victory for local control of schools. The Bush administration had backed the school district on that point.

"It is no more the federal court's role to step in and decide that teachers should not use this practice than it is for the court to say, `All teachers should use rote memorization,' or `no teacher should use rote memorization,' " Richardson said.

"Any teacher in the Owasso School District would tell you they don't want to be deprived of this valuable tool, whether they use it or not," he added. "They need all the arrows they can have in the quiver, because what works for some kids doesn't work for others."

But John Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute, which represented the Falvo family, argued that some kids, especially those who are struggling academically, are harmed by trade and grade.

"The school districts think they won this case," he said, "but I still think they ought to re-evaluate what they're doing. Kids are cruel, and the kid who doesn't do well is not being helped when a teacher points out his poor performance to his classmates."

A separate issue in the case was whether the 1974 law allows private lawsuits to be filed by parents like Falvo. The court decided Tuesday's case assuming that such lawsuits are proper, but Kennedy noted that the justices will revisit the issue in an unrelated case later this year.